The RSPB insists there is no evidence that there will be an impact on seabirds or birds in surrounding farmland. Ian Kendall, site manager at Bempton, said there was no evidence that turbines would impact on seabirds or farmbirds.

Mr Kendall said: “As a scientific organisation which we largely are, we can only state facts; the facts are that it is not going to affect the seabird colony at all because they don’t feed on the fields, they feed on the sea. “We have eight species of seabirds here and they are completely and utterly oceanic. Guillemots, razorbills and puffins are hardly capable of walking on the land; these birds have developed over the millennia to be completely and utterly dependent on the sea. “Pink-footed geese pass down the coast and they can quite easily see turbines.

“The fact is birds avoid turbines in the same way that they avoid buildings.”

…estimates from various studies show that up to one billion birds may be killed each year in collisions with buildings; another billion may die due to predation by outdoor cats; up to 50 million may die in collisions with communication towers; perhaps 15 million die annually due to pesticide poisoning and there is growing concern about bird mortality caused by the burgeoning wind industry.

For years the conservation charity has been a supporter of renewable energy, including wind, to reduce carbon emissions and help fight global warming. But in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Sir Simon Jenkins warned that wind was the “least efficient” form of green power, and risked blighting the British landscape.

He said “not a week goes by” without the charity having to fight plans for wind farms that threaten the more than 700 miles of coastline, 28,500 acres of countryside and more than 500 properties owned by the Trust. “Broadly speaking the National Trust is deeply sceptical of this form of renewable energy,” he said.

If you’re in the giving to charity mood, the National Trust may be a better choice than the RSPB.

The Royal Society for the Pulverising of Birds fully supports “alternative energy” including shredders. They say on their site that “If wind farms are located away from major migration routes and important feeding, breeding and roosting areas of those bird species known or suspected to be at risk, it is likely that they will have minimal impacts”. And if they’re not so sited? It’s well known large birds-of-prey and seabirds ride on air currents in hilly or clifftop areas, just where shredders will be sited. Not only that, the RSPB is planning to install small turbines in many of their bird sanctuaries and centres.

An RSPB spokesan said “The seabirds keep to the sea and the cliffs. They would not go near the turbines, and the other birds — whether local or migratory — know how to avoid them, just as they do with buildings”.

A frequent argument from shredder apologists is that more birds are killed by hitting buildings than by turbines. Buildings don’t whirl in large circles. They’re easy to see, yet still birds are killed by them. The left hand knoweth not what the right hand sayeth.

Apparently, that UK “bird charity” never saw this recent report from the Spanish Society of Ornithology.http://toryardvaark.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/stei_media_release_14jan2012.pdf
They conclude that each turbine kills 300 – 1000 birds and bats annually.
Turbines have made the American Golden Eagle a threat to become extinct. By the way, its a federal offence to kill a Golden Eagle which carries a hefty fine and jail time, but I’m unaware of any Greenpeace type making a complaint – unlike the screaming tantrums they went through when a flock of ducks landed in a tar sands water pit. Why is that?